Spiritual Remakes: Films That Pay Tribute To Their Origins

Have you ever heard of a spiritual remake? We're here to explain.

We’ve
all heard the terms ‘spiritual successor’ or ‘spiritual sequels’, i.e., a
follow-up in theory. While The Ninth Configuration may not be a
direct sequel to The Exorcist in
genre or premise, it takes place within the same universe and involves some of
the same characters and shared themes.
The same can be said of Prometheus
being a spiritual prequel to Alien
by being indirectly related and touching on much of the same iconography and
mythos. In other words, they’re like
nieces or nephews. But what about the
much more debatable kid cousins, or in the case of film comparison, “spiritual
remakes”? What are some of the more
overt examples of films that are, in theory, remakes of defining examples of
films that set the bar for storytelling, style, and meaning? Where a majority of modern Hollywood films as
of current are direct retellings of preexisting works, what about those that
are far more indirect and in their own ways share structure, design, and find
themselves echoing one another? In an
effort to better understand this notion of a spiritual remake, The Movie Sleuth
takes an investigative look at several movies that have more in common than
most (including its makers) have been led to believe.

Taxi Driver/Nightcrawler *

Scorsese's Taxi Driver captured a young De Niro in his prime playing a sociopathic outcast that was on a self loathing path to destruction. Along his way, the character Travis Bickle routinely tried to prove his self worth but was always met with consternation and was never understood or fully accepted by the characters that surrounded him. Bickle was on off putting, uncomfortable man with mixed up morals that would define his strange and wayward path. His version of love was that of a man condemned to his own version of perverted sexuality and manipulation. In 2014's Nightcrawler, the lead character of Louis Bloom is a glimmering reflection that could be considered a modern day version of Travis Bickle. Bloom is twisted, self aware, and shares many of the same variances in persona.

Not only does Nightcrawler hint at some of the same themes as Taxi Driver, there are scenes that are a direct reflection of the 1970s drama. There is a throwback of sorts that shows Bloom standing in front of mirror in a volatile manner similar to the classic scene with De Niro. Nightcrawler also repeats the misogynistic tones of an unlovable main character that cannot have the higher class woman he so desires. In each film, the protagonist becomes more and more erratic in behavior, ultimately leading to a sad finale of sorts. While Nightcrawler is not a direct remake of Taxi Driver, its tribute like influences are very apparent. And that all goes without mentioning the vehicular elements of both movies.

Enter the Void/Only God Forgives

Nicolas
Winding Refn thanked Gaspar Noe after asking him advice on the head-stomp scene
midway into the film Drive, the L.A.
crime drama that would win Refn the Best Director Award at Cannes and worldwide
attention as a major talent. With his
most recent film Only God Forgives, a
kind of abstract, surreal, occasionally taboo and ultraviolent dreamland of
silence and dead space among American drug dealers meeting their end at the
hands of a sword wielding retired cop in the Thailand, he was met with an
unforeseen amount of divisive and largely negative reception, including among
Refn fans. Given the appearance of Noe’s
name in the special thanks portion, few years prior, Gaspar Noe’s equally
divisive, dreamy, and equally if not more incestuous nightmare of a movie Enter the Void, one that also meets and
posits first person point-of-view the experience of American drug dealers
living and meeting their end in Japan, depicting American lowlifes almost
immediate death trying to make it in Asia.

Visually both films lush, handsome cinematography aim for a kind of Christmas
Tree/neon lit noir set in the crime scenes of Asia from an outsider’s
perspective. Both films main characters
have a big problem with incest, Enter the
Void dispensing with it in death where Only
God Forgives situation seems to cause death. Equally slow paced in its meandering designed
to evoke either a heightened reality or overt fantasy, neither movie informs
the audience which is which, as the films mutually careen toward a formally
inconclusive note. Incidentally, Noe and
Refn at one point or another regarded their opaque wanderers of a movie as
stylized violent porn, a statement true both figuratively and in Void’s case literally. For both directors, it’s the kind of
uncommercial head-trip movie that will never be all things to all people but
stay relevant in cult interest for those who like their crime tales a bit more
extreme.

2001: A Space Odyssey/There Will Be Blood

Opening
literally in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A
Space Odyssey and figuratively in Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood on The Dawn of Man
sequence, both epic masterpieces begin on a silent gaze over life struggling to
survive the harsh and stark Western terrain before abruptly introducing
dialogue and defined characters. Thus
beginning with strings heavy avant-garde music provided and inspired by
Krzysztof Penderecki, both movies deal with the abject terror of man’s fear of
the unknown, technology as a way of life with strife before their protagonists transcend
into madness, death or rebirth before ending on a divisively interpretive
note. Both offer a uniquely creepy
adversaries we love to hate with memorable dialogue and confrontations with the
films heroes or villains depending on your point of view.

Earlier detractors of Anderson’s epic dubbed
it ‘sub-par Kubrick’, yet There Will Be
Blood almost transposes 2001 from
the future to the past and is equally ominous in size and awesome in
scope. Equally kindred is the editing,
with many lingering vistas of barren landscapes either Earthly or Lunar
gradually being colonized with manmade machinery. Some will tire of the slower pace of both
films while others find it hypnotic. As
for me, the artistic and technical heights reached by both films is staggering
and mutually established both directors as among the greatest in cinema
history!

Mean Streets/Menace II Society

Separated
by race and setting, Martin Scorsese’s Little Italy mafia picture Mean Streets and the Hughes Brothers’
South Central urban crime drama Menace II
Society more or less echo the same gangster drama and character study of a bad
man trying to do good in an underworld he’s desperate to escape from. Utilizing the same trajectory set by Harvey
Keitel’s small-time gangster voiceover narration in Mean Streets, Menace II
Society treads the familiar tracks laid by Scorsese’s film but manages to
retell it in a displaced culture and environment. Scorsese’s signature camera movement, notably
the use of dolly shots moving from one side to the next, can be spotted all
over Menace, notably during crime
deals in motion. The startling moments
of explosive violence coming almost out of nowhere and the manner with which
the story jumps with its hero from scenario to scenario also serve to echo
Scorsese’s film.

The gulf between good
and evil in both criminal underworlds is navigated by the films’ mutually
morally conflicted protagonist who wants to shake loose the shackles of a life
of wrongdoing but ultimately to no avail.
The Hughes Brothers have of their own admission confessed to their
adoration of Scorsese and while far more judgmental critics have been quick to
dub the duo ripoff artists, a more sound analysis would be the recognition of
the filmmakers’ transposition of Scorsese’s New York mafia tale into ghetto
culture. As much of a tribute to the
grandmaster as it is a building block towards a new kind of independent crime
drama, Menace II Society also
maintains Mean Streets’ shattering
finale where we’re not sure if the film’s hero will emerge from the
bloodletting shootout alive or dead. In
what may or may not be his final moments, the protagonist looks around at those
left behind as he contemplates the promise of what his life could have been
before the bullet of a gun ultimately decided his fate.

An American Werewolf in London/Chronicle

While
one concerns a werewolf horror comedy and the other is something of a found
footage superhero thriller with a sharp sense of humor, directing father John
Landis’ An American Werewolf in London and
screenwriting son Max Landis’ Chronicle represent
a funny and scary look at bodily transformation after an inexplicable encounter
with the unknown. Aimed between senior
high and college, the films’ heroes are unassuming students who wander into a
bizarre, supernatural or unearthly phenomenon and emerge changed, debatably for
the better. As their metamorphoses
intensify, they begin to lose control in increasingly deadly and destructive
ways that threaten the safety of all near them.
It doesn’t take long for an all-out war between man and monster to
erupt. All the while guiding viewers
through the horror plot elements are the likeably humorous characters who can’t
help but tug at our heartstrings when they tragically succumb to the vices of
their newfound powers.

Though the
found-footage aesthetic differs the visual approach, the dynamic structure of
the story and clever attitude towards it is the same. Something of a darker, edgier precursor as
well as a realistic, occasionally disturbing successor to Ghostbusters, An American
Werewolf in London and Chronicle represent
horror-comedy of the highest order, mixing laughs with screams. All the while for both creative visionaries,
the Landis’ offerings in this genre make up some of the most artistically
successful original horror storytelling in a way that allows you an enjoyable
ride whose horrific elements are counterbalanced by the rib tickling. Like father like son, John and Max are very
much cut from the same cloth. They even
sound the same in interviews, right down to their laughter and manner. More than anything, both films complement one
another by taking the same basic blueprints and making a wholly original film
twice out of that familiarity. While
open to debate which work for either Landis represents the apex of their
careers, their dabbling in the funhouse of horror subgenre are among their
finest.

Chinatown/Brick

While
1940s noir is already an ongoing location for homage, few movies are as
distinctively similar in tone, approach and even dialogue as Roman Polanski’s
timeless noir Chinatown and Rian
Johnson’s transposition of the aforementioned film into high school, Brick.
Right down to the private investigator protagonists who eventually find
their faces obscured behind bandages after being roughed up to the jarring
dialect which feels even more displaced in modern day, Brick and Chinatown walk
the same ground as the films’ sleuthing protagonist tries to piece together the
murder mystery as the body count, intrigue and threats to his own life begin to
rise.

Where Chinatown on the one hand authentically recreates a bygone era as a
stylized backdrop for Polanski’s story, Brick
on the other hand creates an even more displacing paradox by keeping the
words of Chinatown while jettisoning
the timeframe, setting and age group. At
times, dangerous to Brick, is just
how far Rian Johnson goes to call attention to the awkwardness of a spider web
of crime being enacted ostensibly by minors.
There’s even a scene involving a meeting between the film’s hero and a
villainous Godfather whose mother comes in to bring him a glass of orange
juice. He might be overseeing a powerful
syndicate but he’s still really just a child.
Chinatown feels naturalistic
and believable where Brick almost
attempts to make a sendup of Chinatown by
giving Polanski’s treatment of film noir a pair of training wheels. In this sense, the idea of Brick being regarded as a spiritual
remake of Chinatown is somewhat more
open to debate as they walk the same line but couldn’t be more different in
their aims with one film drawing you in while the other deliberately keeps you
at arm’s length.

The Hidden Fortress/Star Wars: A New Hope

Of
his own free admission, George Lucas pointed to Akira Kurosawa as his number
one cinematic influence and singled out the Japanese master’s one and only
lark, The Hidden Fortress, as a
direct link to Star Wars: A New Hope. Though separated by decades and genre, one
being a jidaigeki while the other is a futuristic science fiction story,
everything from Kurosawa’s wipes, fades, camera movement, shot arrangement, and
the structure of the story itself finds its way into Star Wars. The two main
peasants, Tahei and Matashichi, wander the barren Tokugawa period landscape of
Japan on their journey that will soon involve a lone hero and a princess
battling against mercenary forces of evil, much like C-3PO and R2-D2 as they
begin their own journey on Tattoine before eventually encountering Luke
Skywalker and Princess Leia.

Both movies
are something of swashbuckling entertainments depicting thrilling battles with
richly detailed characters you’re invited to laugh at as well as with. More than anything, both films at the time of
their inception represented technically proficient widescreen works which
pushed the envelope as far as what people were used to seeing in the movies,
whether it be Kurosawa’s use of panorama, graphic violence or the multi-channel
Perspecta sound format or Lucas’ groundbreaking visual effects, creature and
set design. Proof that the same story
can be retold in vastly different ways, The
Hidden Fortress and A New Hope share
a unique and original vision of the American Western as never experienced
before, one displaced by medieval Japan with the other transposed into
classical science fiction serials not unlike Buck Rogers or King of the
Rocket Men serials of the 1940s. In
time, both also would eventually take their place in the annals of masterful
and timeless cinema to be cherished again and again.

The Man Who Fell to Earth/Under the Skin

Though
separated by decades and differences in the amount of dialogue, Nicolas Roeg’s
sprawling and psychedelic The Man Who
Fell to Earth and Jonathan Glazer’s opaque and minimalist Under the Skin provide experiential
science fiction fantasies that are as much about the extraterrestrial
perspective as they come to grips with contemporary human sexuality before
losing sight of their original mission on Earth altogether. Although David Bowie’s benevolent entrepreneur
aiming to replenish his drought stricken planet differs questionably in
nobility from Scarlett Johansson’s silent nymph luring unassuming men to their
deaths, the point with which both aliens incognito abandon ship and lose sight
of their otherworldly identity and the tragedy of their mutual inability to
deal with their own skewed definition of human frailties.

Much of this comes from the films’ mutually disorienting
and unorthodox editing, drifting through a fog of occasionally freakish and
often sexualized images, abstract as well as sneakily within context. Both films find common ground in their
deliberate attempts to break down comprehensible linearity by filtering both
stories through a disjointed prism. Of a
decidedly different but equally surreal visual language, Roeg and Glazer’s
films leap from one point of view to another so fast it’s easy to either get lost
or forced to resort to our own interpretation of what we’re seeing through
their eyes. Likewise, each alien
masterpiece of carefully constructed images serve as unique metaphors for what
it means to be human. No doubt Roeg’s
film is far meatier where Glazer’s film draws its strength from how little it
gives, leaving the debate open for which version of the story is more
artistically successful. Still, in the
end there’s no doubting their intentions couldn’t be more likeminded if they
tried.

Battle Royale/The Hunger Games

When
the recent cinematic adaptation of the teen dystopia novel series The Hunger Games first came into pop
cultural consciousness, a debate arose over the undeniable similarities it
shared with a lesser known, ultraviolent cult epic from Japan known as Battle Royale. The story of youths battling in a violent
contest to the death under the duress of an oppressive, totalitarian
government, one got the impression both movies essentially did the same thing. Due to the extreme violence of the late Kinji
Fukusaku’s final masterpiece, Toei Pictures refused to license Battle Royale to American moviegoers for
over 10 years out of fear it would be given the NC-17 and restricted to the
arthouse circuit only. It wasn’t until
word of mouth surrounding The Hunger
Games’ connection to Royale that
Fukusaku’s ode to the teen suicide phenomenon due to the intense competition
behind Japanese collegiate entrance exams finally garnered a theatrical and
home video release in the United States.
Inevitably, comparisons in terms of quality, lack of compromise and
richness of vision were drawn between the two teen science fiction parables,
but both couldn’t be more different in terms of aims and style upon closer
inspection.

For one thing, The Hunger Games depicts an extensive
selection and training process for the kids before being unleashed into the
open wild with their guns and arrows drawn, ready to spill one another’s
blood. In Battle Royale, the youngsters chosen at random are dropped with
flailing arms into their incomprehensible predicament and are given no time to
come to grips with the situation before they’re fighting for survival of the
fittest. Given the distinctly Japanese
social commentary behind Battle Royale,
it’s not difficult to see how Fukusaku’s mournful swan song could be easily
misunderstood by viewers consuming the bloodshed at face value as not much more
than entertaining violence. Those who
have that point of view about Battle
Royale ought to take a closer look at The
Hunger Games and decide which of the two is merely violence as
entertainment.

Night of the Creeps/Slither

The
creepy crawly subgenre of horror, often preying on man’s fear of insects,
rodents and other microorganisms out to eat us alive is taken to a new level
with the concept of extraterrestrial slugs from another distant region of the
universe set on infiltrating the human race.
The concept of alien gastropod molluscs may have been reached first by
David Cronenberg’s Shivers, only
instead of becoming murderous nymphomaniacs, Night of the Creeps and the obvious nod Slither depict their slimy crawlers as zombifying their victims
from beyond the grave as they both resurrect the dead and transform the living
into serial murderers. Horror comedies
of the highest order lovingly assailing creature feature tropes dating back to
the 1950s, Night of the Creeps and Slither achieve that unusual feat of rib
tickling with humor as well as testing the gag reflexes with their intensifying
gross outs.

Both movies deliberately
serve up the same gaggle of B-movie heroes and villains, believers and skeptics
as all kinds of bloody Hell break loose in the small town Americas they take
place in in a manner that’s not so much reciting a cliché as it is paying
homage. Needless to say, however, when
word of Slither broke with the
trailers, fans of Night of the Creeps decried
the film as a shamelessly derivative carbon copy, which it is and it
isn’t. While following the same
trajectory as Night of the Creeps, Slither ups the ante in terms of special
effects and even grislier grue than the source of its inspiration. The similarities are undeniable, as is the
level of goofball fun they’re both able to whip up!